Through the torpor that rested like a black cloud upon his senses he caught broken phrases, snatches of sentences:
He works in his rose-garden with a new vim, whistling or even singing to himself stray gay snatches of melodies popular in the 'eighties.
The Spider arrives hurriedly, snatches the giddy-pate and disjoints his shanks, which she empties of their contents, the best part of the insect.
I often glanced at it, for she sat in the window all the time we were at work; and made our breakfast, which we took by snatches as we were employed.
The night seemed endless, for she was too frightened to sleep except in broken snatches; and when day dawned, and she looked through the little round pane of glass in the port-hole, only gray sky and gray weltering waves and flying spray and rain met her view.